26th October... 7:00 am... Somewhere inside Kilgharah Mountain...

Jerry takes a deep breath as he walks along the concrete corridor lined with heavy steel beams to keep it stable. Holding a clipboard in his right hand, it can be seen to have a medium sized stack of papers secured to its surface, in his left hand is a pencil which he taps against his leg. Reaching a heavy-duty blast door, Jerry walks over to a terminal embedded in the wall behind a secret panel. The device has many different sections and items needing to be filled out, such as a number password, keyword panel, eye scanner, voice recognition box, enhanced magic scanner system and a coin slot to the far right. Looking it all over, Jerry gets a coin out of his pocket which is engraved with a draconequus and flips it into the coin slot. The blast door begins sliding up to open without him needing to touch the other security measures. Walking into the large, slightly chilly warehouse-like room, Jerry can see his sister up on the second floor already checking through the 'spare furniture' section.

"Gotta love the mid-week stock check..." Jerry sighs deeply but does not appear sad.

"Morning brother." A man states passing Jerry on a yellow forklift.

The man wears an outfit in a similar colour scheme to his siblings. His attire is comprised of black jeans, black cowboy boots with silver etchings, a long buttoned up trench coat which has an attached hood on the back and a black cowboy hat all with brown trim.

"Morning Barret." Jerry states in response as he puts the clipboard on top of a crate.

After a few seconds, Barret's forklift is followed by another being driven by... Barret?

"Morning brother." The second Barret states.

Jerry adjusts his trench slightly while holding out one hand with a finger up.

After a couple more seconds a third, fourth and fifth forklift pass by Jerry each being driven by Barret, as each one passes Jerry puts up another finger till getting to four which is how many manifestations of himself that Barret can handle at one given time. Picking up a megaphone, Jerry turns it on and points it in Shana's direction.

"We got any inventories we can check off yet?!" Jerry shouts making Shana turn around.

Opening a portal next to her, another one opens above Jerry's head so she can stick her own through it. Shana ends up upside down next to Jerry.

"The Smooze incident didn't do too much property damage thanks to the barriers holding. That said all the park benches, several lamposts, beach equipment etc was either swallowed and dissolved or floated into the ocean. In the case of the latter, we either haven't found it or it's to water damaged to be of any use. In total we used extra alcohol sales to make up the difference, thus rebalancing the books." Shana reports with a smile before dropping down to properly stand beside Jerry.

Barret drives up to them on a transport cart meant for personnel to get around their warehouse.

"Also thanks to the Smooze our medical bill for this month is a lot more than in past instances. We nearly ran out of emergency magical spheres while barely stopping people going into sudden magical deficiency shock. We'd planned to use the revenue from the Halloween festival to make up the loss in the books." Barret explains crossing his arms.

Jerry looks through his sheets before ticking a few things and humming lowly.

"How well is that going so far?" Jerry asks glancing at Barret who simply sticks his thumb up. "Right, there was something important on my list I needed to check but it should be able to wait till later."

The trio gets on the transport cart, Jerry riding shotgun, Barret driving and Shana sitting on the back. They begin driving through the many corridors and vast array of rooms which make up the Shady family warehouse.

"So, prior to this inspection did it look like we were running out of anything?" Shana asks looking over her shoulder.

"We're going to need to place a large bulk order for those medical orbs along with some other requests made by Nurse Redheart. The spa appeared to be running out of quite a few things, obviously, recent events have several people stressed. I'm praying we have enough alcohol to last us until the end of the festival, but we should make an emergency purchase just to be safe." Jerry states as he looks around the rooms as they drive.

Eventually, they reach a fence gate which parts to let them drive through into a very large room. The odd thing about it is the sky and clouds, combined with the fact the 'room' appears to be outside... The finely crafted menagerie is the product of their fourth sibling and second sister, Harriet. It's a vast section of their warehouse that is made up of many state of the art magically simulated biomes with an overview day & night cycle, golem crafted personnel to handle the feeding/manual care of the plethora of animals they keep there. Every animal held in the menagerie eventually ends up at Shy's Familiars, from fully bred dragons to direwolves and fairies. Considering its size and needed upkeep, it was decided that Harriet could just oversee this operation if she so desired.

"Our sister has a serious love for animals and familiars with what she turned this place into." Shana states looking up into the 'sky'.

"Aye, but our sister has a talent for that sorta thing. Just like Jerry and his illusion magic, you with your transportation magic and me with my duplication magic." Barret explains as they drive down a slightly rocky path.

After twenty minutes of driving they reach a tunnel on the other side of the menagerie. Passing through they come out into a large warehouse with various support beams keeping it stable.

"We need to make a stop by the alcohol section to make sure we still have enough for the festival end party. Both Vivienne and Nigel will need the extra stock to survive the sales that night... If I know a certain two like I do, we might need to break open the reserve." Jerry flicks through some papers and ticks several things as they drive past various sections.

"I doubt it'll be that serious, we have yet to run out of stock in the two years we took over management." Shana states happily making Barret chuckle.

"Don't ya go forgetting the various close calls and last-minute stock resupplies we have needed to do." Barret glances back at Shana who pouts.

They finally reach a caged area which contains many different packed crates of alcohol. The cage itself is heavily enchanted by the four siblings combined with wards to lock the front gate. Using his coin to unlock the padlock on the gate the three siblings begin going through each crate carefully.

"I still wonder how some people drink most of this stuff, but each to their own poison I guess..." Jerry ticks off the various crates as they get searched.

"Brother, what exactly are we looking for here?" Shana states tidying up some crates.

"We don't have any do we..?" Jerry begins to look worried.

"I ain't seen a crate yet... It's also not a brand we keep in the emergency stash..." Barret states as the three share a slowly growing look of worry.

At that moment Jerry's phone goes off to a very familiar ringtone which makes all three look at his coat pocket.

"Five gold he'll say he felt a disturbance in the force..." Shana states looking at Barret.

"Ten gold, I'll raise you." Barret replies as Jerry gets his phone out to answer it.

Jerry rolls his eyes at the pair before fishing his phone out to answer it.

"*Ahem*, hey dad." Jerry states in greeting.

"Ah, Jerry... I couldn't help but notice a disturbance in the force and sensed that we might be in a bit of a pickle?" The voice asks in a gentleman-like tone.

Barret swears slightly under his breath before tossing Shana a small brown pouch with ten gold in it.

"You could say something like that..." Jerry deadpans at his siblings before rolling his eyes again.

"Well, what is it? It can't be worse than the Valentines rush last year." The voice is heard vocally shivering. "Now that was chaotic."

"The cinder fruit punch is gone, dad..." Jerry states in earnest.

There is a brief period of silence without any noise whatsoever followed by a mild cricket sound.

"Oh bother... That is a pickle, isn't it... Right, we're 25th..." The voice can be heard flicking through notes and what Jerry assumes is a calendar. "Halloween party is 31st... Place an emergency order here... Five days... Hmm? Oh, move some of my troops into Russia and I'll call that a move."

Jerry looks at his phone confused for a moment before putting it back to his ear.

"Dad, are you playing Risk?" Jerry asks perplexed.

"Quite and chess, while trying to sort this out so we avoid unneeded damage. If we place an order now, label it an emergency, we should get it in time for the Halloween party. Oh, invading Japan? That's diabolical, I love it." The voice states obviously having two conversations.

"Thanks, dad. I'll let you know if we need anything else." Jerry hangs up and heaves a heavy sigh.

"Told you so." Shana folds her arms and smiles widely.

"We're so boned..." Jerry pockets his phone before rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Suddenly the trio hears a voice scream into the warehouse section they are in. Confused, they step out of the alcohol area and look around.

"Clear the road!" A female yells down at them.

Looking in the direction of the menagerie area the trio can see a flaming three-headed dog running towards them. They dive out of the way letting it pass as their sister speeds past on a motorcycle holding a leash.

"You were saying, brother?" Shana states with a giggle looking at Jerry beside her on the floor.

"This place is a constant fifty shades of chaos isn't it..?" Jerry lays his face against the floor.

"Ooh, that could be a book! Or better yet the title of a chapter!" Shana exclaims seeming excited making Jerry groan under his hat.

Author's Note

A filler chapter if anything, but it was interesting to try and write. We get to see the perspective from the infamous Shady family and get an inkling as to who their father is. I tried to write them the best I could and hope it was satisfactory. We hope to see you all next time.